True Blood Recap: Everyone Nice And/Or Funny Dies

Hi all! Sorry this is a day late…I took an impromtu vacation. Buckle up for a very action packed episode! Last week, Sookie and the Gang unraveled the mystery of the casually dead girl in the woods, tracing her back to her hometown and finding a giant mass grave and a lot of creepy SOS signs. The vamps got everyone. Arlene and Holly begged Betty, a vamp who had been their kids’ best teacher, to save them. She was just about to do so when she disintegrated in Arlene’s lap. Vince and his dumb squad turned the remaining townspeople of Bon Temps against Sam, Alcide, Andy, Sookie and Jason and raided the police station for guns. Adilyn tried desperately to get Kenya to secure the guns, but Kenya was convinced to side with the townspeople and when she attempted to arrest Adilyn, Adilyn shot her with her faerie light. Now she and Wade are behind bars. Jessica sensed that Adilyn was in danger, but it was the middle of the day, so the best she could do was to inform Andy that she’s in trouble and that she’s going out after dark to save her. Would Andy go with her? Meanwhile Lettie Mae (sigh…) burned herself badly and talked Willa into giving her more sweet, sweet vamp juice causing her to see a vision of Tara on the cross, draped with a snake and speaking in tongues. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that that’s probably not a good thing. Sookie might be doing something dangerous soon and Pam found Eric in France. Unfortunately he’s infected with Hep V!!!

We open this episode in Los Angeles at a pretty nice looking meditation and yoga center.

I was hoping so hard that the yogi was Jason Mantzoukas. Bummer.

As the guru runs the class through poses and waxes philosophical, he calls a guy out for staring at a girl’s butt. Suddenly we see a familiar face…a head raises and it’s crazy Sara Newlin in full yoga sex kitten mode!

After that fun diversion (and the opening sequence) we see Pam and Eric, back together again. He found out he was infected a month prior, in St. Petersburg. Pam is pissed he made her chase him all over. Favorite quote: “You know how I hate the Russian people.” He didn’t know she’d keep looking for him, but the fact that he kept moving proves that that’s not true. She explains that Tara met the true death. Instead of saying anything about Tara, Eric asks if Pam played the “bucket game”…apparently that Russian Roulette game in Morocco was one of his favorites. Unfortunately it looks like Eric has given up. “This can’t all be about Sylvie,” says Eric. It’s about a variety of vamps actually.

We then get a flashback of sexy French Eric…in a sexy French vineyard in 1986. He’s way into Sylvie, the vintner’s daughter, and he promises to either glamour her father or kill him if he finds out about them. They bang in the vineyard and he tastes her, his glorious feathered hair bouncing rhythmically amongst the vines.

Suddenly, Nan shows up out of nowhere…it’s Eric and Nan’s very first meeting. Eric and Pam have been bad vampires..not registering with the local sheriff, not paying taxes, etc. Pam announces her dislike for Nan, but Nan thinks if circumstances were different, they might even be friends. Pam eyes her up and down and agrees, mainly on the strength of Nan’s bitching pumps.

So very 80’s

Nan admonishes Eric for banging in the vineyard when they’re supposed to be on the down low. She tells them that through the Authority’s partnership with the Yakanomo Corporation, a Japanese pharmaceutical company, they’ve created True Blood, a blood substitute. Man how far we’ve come from this initial story line! This is the big breakthrough that will allow “mainstreaming” and it’s her job to make sure they understand that they can’t be openly banging the vintner’s daughter if vamps want to have their big, friendly “coming out” to the world down the road. This is big money for vampkind, and neither the company nor the authority will take “no” for an answer. Eric tells Nan to fuck off. The conversation clearly alarms Pam…she’s a lot more afraid of the Authority than Eric seems to be. She tries to convince him that they need to leave that night, but Eric likes France and Sylvie is in the midst of studying art history at University. Oy. Pam tries to convince him to leave Sylvie if need be…she’s just a human. Eric tells her to fall in line with him, not the Authority…after all he’s always protected her and done right by her. Uh oh.

Back in the present day we get shirtless Alcide, one of Disco’s Favorite Things (I’m trademarking that, FYI), roaming around Sookie’s house. He realizes Sookie is gone and runs straight to vampire Bill’s house, tracking her by scent. She’s already gone…driving away in Bill’s car. Whatever it is she wants to do, he wants to dissuade her from doing it. He can’t feel Sookie after all. When he was drained in the camp in order to save the other vamps, he lost his ability to feel her. He’s a new man…not the guy who did all those things to her in the past. I’m not sure how this works…so, with all new blood he gets an entirely new personality? Hmm…if only that worked in real life! Anyway, she drinks from him so he can help her with whatever crazy suicide mission she’s headed off on since changing her mind is impossible (as always).

“I have a boyfriend”

Wade and Adilyn are in jail and Wade’s terrified. He’s hoping everyone’s going to be OK (including them) and to distract him, Adilyn tells him that they made out once. A vamp glamoured him afterwards, but he’s super excited by the news. Right when they’re about to make out some more, Jessica and Andy arrive. They tell them that the whole town is after anyone and anything that’s different than they are. Healthy vamps, sick vamps, other supernaturals…they’re after them all.

In the church, Sam is trying to make sense of what he’s seen. There has to be more to life than a family being taken away in the middle of a pizza dinner. The Rev Daniels says he needs faith. Sam makes a salient point…all kinds of bad things have happened to people of faith…what good did it do them? The Rev counters with “What harm did having it do?” Looking towards death with no faith at all is worse that looking towards it with faith. Just then, Lettie Mae rushes in, hallucinating like crazy. Rev Daniels asks everyone to leave.

Sam and his partner vampire Matt are driving away when Matt says, “Well, that was awkward.” Sam calls him “dishy” and it’s fabulous. I like Matt.

The two find the whole mob of townspeople blocking the road and are stopped at gunpoint. Sam tries to convince them all that they’re making a mistake. They taunt him for being a dog. He tries to get Rocky to come with him, but Rocky is as dumb as his Momma thinks he is, bless his heart. In the heat of the moment, Vince pulls the trigger and Matt is dunzo. I knew you weren’t long for this world Matt, but you didn’t deserve to be shot by stupid Vince. Vince declares himself mayor but before he can do much else, Sam turns into an owl and flies away. I might have picked a smaller target to turn into, but he gets away.

At Jason’s house, Jason asks Violet if one day she’ll have a baby with him…maybe they could adopt? He really took Andy’s words to heart and now he thinks he’s nothing without a family. Is one little town of dead people going to turn him into a girl, asks Violet? The men in her village could walk by charred corpses of women and children and not feel anything. Back then, men were warriors. Jason contends that he is a modern man who thinks, feels AND is a bad-ass warrior. She doesn’t want modern…she wants a man who lives by a code, a warrior with an “iron forged cock.”

Andy, Jessica, Wade and Adilyn knock at the door, interrupting their fight. Violet pulls Jess aside and gives her a very stern warning that this is her house. They call a truce until they find Sookie, but she still hates Jess. Damn, Vi knows how to hold a grudge. Andy tells Jason about the marauding gang of townspeople and that they might be after Sookie. Andy asks Wade and Adilyn to stay there while he, Jason, Violet and Jess go off in search of Sookie.

Lafayette dance party!!!! Someone please GIF THIS SHIT!!!

Jess’ pretty boyfriend James is at the door. He’s back for some weed, but Lafayette has run out. Lafayette’s pharmacy is open but James can’t swallow pills. He wants to take his mind off some “Jessica stuff”…they’re in a relationship, but a lot of the time he’s not even sure she knows he’s there. Lafayette suggests that maybe it’s the other way around. They talk about drugs and it turns out that Tuinol is the last drug James had as a mortal. It turns your body into an ocean and lets your consciousness ride the waves. Lafayette creates Tuinol via drug cocktail and James reminds him that he can’t swallow pills. Lafayette says that he’ll do the swallowing and tells James to give him 20 minutes to get the drugs into his blood stream. God I want a Lafayette spin-off.

At Fantasia, they’re down to five bodies…only 2 more days of food, max. I no longer understand their hourly eating schedule, but OK. Their leader tries to convince them to hunt but they’re all weak so he proposes bringing one of the captives them out on the hunt with them in case they have to feed and don’t find anyone outside. Essentially he’s turning one of them into the granola bar I keep in my purse for low blood sugar emergencies.

In the basement, Holly is leading a witchy prayer circle trying conjure up something to help them. The leader appears and asks which of them thinks they’re Harry Potter. Holly fesses up and now she’s going hunting.

Out in the middle of nowhere, Bill is perched in a tree telling Sookie that her plan is insane. Essentially she’s banking on being “vampire bait” and being saved at the last minute. This plan sounds vaguely familiar…oh yeah, it’s the ENTIRE PLOT OF THIS TV SHOW IN A NUTSHELL. Bill asks, if everything goes as planned and the sick vamps take her where they’re holding the other humans, should he bring Alcide along? Of course, she says…and anyone else who can help rescue people. She’s hoping there are lots of people who’ll need rescuing and the last thing she needs is more people dying because of her. Bill asks if she loves Alcide and when she tells him that’s none of his business, he presses that if they’re going to be friends they need to share their feelings. Ultimately, she doesn’t want to have kids but Alcide does. She does love Alcide but she can tell that he loves her more than she loves him and it makes her feel awful. She can hear it in his voice and his thoughts. Bill, trying to be nice, says love isn’t always equal…maybe she’ll grow to love him more. She’d take him loving her a little less just the same.

In the car, Andy, Jason, Violet and Jess are frantically looking for Sookie but dumb ass STILL DOESN’T HAVE HER PHONE. They stop behind Sam’s car and in front of it they find Matt the puddle. They’re quickly ambushed by the townsfolk. Good thing there’s only one way in or out of town when you’re an angry mob, I guess. Jason goes full Rambo mode with his speech to the townspeople and Kenya mentions that Adilyn shot her with lightning that came out of her hand. Andy knows, and he is very proud of her for that (LOL). Andy, Jason and company want to get through but Mrs. Fortenberry ends the standoff by directly threatening Jess and Jason. She still holds a grudge against Jess for breaking poor Hoyt’s heart so she shoots Jess in the shoulder and fast as a flash, Violet rips Mrs. Fortenberry’s heart out leaving her dead face down on the pavement. The townspeople scatter.

RIP, Comic Relief

Jess isn’t healing and she’s not sure why. Violet goes after Rocky, catches up with him in the woods and hauls him away (ostensibly to safety). In another part of the woods, the sick vamps catch up with a couple poor souls. I can’t tell what on earth these two idiots are doing in the woods but they’re making a bad life decision, that’s for sure. Wouldn’t you just…stay in your house at night? Anyway, they get hauled away by a couple sick vamps while the rest continue hunting.

Meanwhile, things are getting very, very groovy at Lafayette’s place. They’re grooving to the music, flowing on the waves only a variety of pharmaceuticals can create. Fuck the past, right now is all that matters. Ironically, this is very close to the sentiment the yogi in the very opening scene was expressing to his class. I sense a theme building. To Tuinol!

Sam catches up to Alcide and they scamper, hearing a couple of the dumb townspeople in the woods fumbling with their weapons. Meanwhile, Sookie is apparently trying to earn a girl scout merit badge for stake making while discussing the joys of Six Flags with Bill. She likens one of the rides to waiting for vampires to come and get her. The fall isn’t the worst…the waiting is. He says she should try war and she says “is this war, Bill?” Yep, yes it is.

Bill has a flashback of a photography session with his family before going off to war. His daughter is scared, she doesn’t want him to leave. The photographer arrives and he’s a Fortenberry. Damn, this town needs to mix up its gene pool a bit. Bill asks for a photo with just his daughter first, then one of the whole family. It’s sweet…a special picture for his scared little girl to keep while he goes away to war.

Back in real life, Sookie cuts her arm to attract the vamps. She’s tired of waiting.

At Rev Daniels place, Lettie Mae is finally out cold. Willa is sorry, but Rev Daniels knows what’s up…Lettie Mae hurt herself. He insists on feeding Willa even though she could wait. We get a little of his backstory on the Rev…he moved there 6 months after losing a child and his wife strayed. He had lost all faith. People would come by to bring food and check on him but he wouldn’t answer the door, just cower in the corner instead. He got in his car, drove out of town and found the boarded up church in Bon Temps with Lettie Mae out front clutching a bottle of Captain Morgan. She told him she’d been waiting for him. People all think he saved her, but she saved him just as much. Lettie Mae’s a good person, but she’s got a disease. Now Willa just looks like a bottle of Captain Morgan, so she’s got to go. It’s sad…their friendship is sweet…but he rescinds her invitation to his house. God will have to protect him from now on.

Back at Lafayette’s place, James is having trouble waking him up. JESUS…this is what was teased and gave me a heart attack in the promo last week but he wakes up just fine.

Nelsan Ellis is divine with those eyelashes

He asks if boy is grooving on him and yep…he is. OMG please let this couple happen. They are so cute. He can’t do it because of Jessica, but damn. Lafayette deserves some happiness.

Back in France in the 1980’s, Pam is getting freaking with a French woman while ominous figures dressed in black show up with swords. Eric is “busy” in the vineyard when Pam’s voice interrupts them. Someone from the Yakanomo Corporation is there asking who the girl is. Eric reassures Sylvie in French that she’s safe with him. The Yakanomo goons quickly prove him wrong and take her captive. They’re there at the behest of the company. Eric gets the point but it’s too late…either Pam or Sylvie has to go. He tries to sacrifice himself, but the Authority wants him alive. He saves Pam. The Yakanomo men stab poor, naked Sylvie and swoop in to silver Eric.

In the present day, Eric explains to Pam that he didn’t get the disease on purpose but he wasn’t exactly careful either. Pam pleads with him to not make her watch him like this, but he just tries to send her away. Pam brings out her one remaining trump card…Jason let Sarah Newlin live. Suddenly Eric has found his will to live just a little bit longer. It’s time for Sarah to die!

Sarah is totes banging her yoga instructor and they’re doing tantric sex stuff (I assume…ahem). She’s now going by Noomi. She definitely hasn’t been upfront about her true old identity, but she does explain that she came there a Christian girl who thought life was simply an audition for heaven and now she has found heaven here on earth. There is no heaven…only now, says the guru. He has sent her to grab a bottle of wine from the cellar when some very familiar bad guys with swords have arrived. They show yogi a picture of the old Sara Newlin and while yogi cops to knowing Sarah he won’t tell them where she is. Sara successfully hides while poor yogi gets decapitated. Nice knowing you, yogi. You seemed like a cool crunchy granola dude.

In the woods, Sookie sees a dazed Holly stumbling towards her. In quick succession, Bill senses vamps, two pull him down from the tree and silver him while Alcide in wolf form kills the leader, Sam in dog form disarms the other, and Andy and Jason manage to kill all the remaining sick vamps. Alcide is SOOPER pissed. What was Sookie thinking? How could Bill go along with this plan? Bill explains that he’s known her long enough to know that changing her mind is impossible and it was her idea. As Violet washes a blood-soaked Sookie in the river, shots ring out…and Alcide is down. Jess, Andy and Jason open fire on the bushes from which the shots came. Jess offers to turn him, but Sookie says no…she’s been down that road before. Aw, come on…not Alcide! Seriously?

Andy walks up on a couple of the townspeople laying wounded/dead on the ground. They’re the ones who’d been shooting. What assholes…the vamps are dead so you kill some other guy just because he’s different??? Grrr. One is still breathing but badly wounded…it’s Lou, the guy Andy warned about pulling the trigger in episode one. He asks for an ambulance and Andy reiterates what he’d said about life never being the same after you pull the trigger. With that, he walks away.

We end on Sookie sobbing over Alcide’s body. DAMN IT…that whole “I couldn’t stand someone else getting killed because of me” foreshadowing was a BITCH. I love Joe M. mainly because I think he’s incredibly gorgeous and very, very charming in interviews. I also think he never had enough of substance to do in this show. Anyway, pour one out for our fallen shirtless werewolf hero.

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Dr. Overlark explained that Hep-V could be transmitted sexually, by injection, by ingestion, etc., so basically any way other than airborne that one could contract a virus. The vamps in Hawaii (and I’m assuming every other place that Tru Blood was being shipped, Hawaii was just the one place shown as an example) weren’t destroying the shipment in the van, but stealing it and drinking it. Mass pools of newly infected vampires everywhere that Tru Blood had been shipped biting, fucking, etc., various quantities of humans would spread the virus fairly rapidly. Yet only an eighth of the vamp pop has contracted it. With so many routes of infection, I would have thought the infection rate would be even higher.

My opinion of season 7 (so far) in a nutshell: Yay, Tara’s dead, boo anything and everything to do with Lettie May whom I despise, yay LaLa and James, boo vigilante gang especially Vince, yay dead Alcide, I liked you and your abs but you were pretty much useless and we got so much horrible werewolfieness the show could have done without just so you would have storylines, yay at potential Bookie, they deserve each other (take that how you will), massive boo for giving Eric Hep V, there had better be a cure found so Eric and Pam can live on after the end of the show or I’m going to be pissed. Oh, another massive boo to Violet — staking is too good for her.

CynTV

OK – I just started reading your recap and I must comment. The phrase “casually dead girl” is the most epic phrase in the history of epic phrases. It’s a phrase I’ve never heard before, and probably will never hear of again, and I am jealous I didn’t think of it. I will probably spend the next 24 hours trying to think of ways to incorporate it into my vocabulary. I would automatically give a Grammy to a band named “Casually Dead Girl”..

vallegirl

Finally, since our new commenting made the “Post Comment” button disappear because I went on too long, here’s my take on Hep V:

Since they stole that storyline from Being Human, I didn’t assume that all African adults are infected as much as most haven’t been tested so it’s a catch as catch can situation with the adults, but the children are clean. Kind of like how only Kenny the teenaged bubble boy with auto-immune disease was known to be “clean” since he never interacted with other people. Also, they had a human/clean vampire situation when Henry kept his human girlfriend hostage in their home so she’d never contract the virus.

Of course, if they did completely steal the storyline, werewolf blood will be a vaccine. But, alas, Alcide’s dead so he won’t be offering up vials of his blood to save the Bon Temps vamps.

vallegirl

I think the way the “Bill isn’t the same vamp he used to be” works is deus ex machina. They need some way for “our two wayward lovebirds” to get together in the series finale so our last memory of this show is of extremely bitter bitterness that they killed off every single likeable character in service to the greatest love that never loved: Sookie and Bill. At least that’s what my “Alan Ball hates his audience” meter says. (I have no spoilers so if I’m right it’s because he’s that obvious.)

You’d think after seven years they’d realize that the best way to make people like Sookie is not to have the actual likeable characters die because of her idiocy, but she came in like a jackass and she’s going out like one, too.

Also, if you’re not going to bring back Jim Parrack for a cameo as Julian Fortenberry, why not just give the photographer a different name? It was a cute piece of continuity, and the actor did look like Parrack, but it would have worked so much better if it actually had been Hoyt.

WRT to Eric and Pam: did he choose for Pam to live or die? The writing made it sound like they were asking who he’d sacrifice and he said Pam. Since they show both women’s reactions it looked to me like they both thought Pam would get killed (Pam looks sad while Sylvie looks surprised when they let her go) then Sylvie gets stabbed instead.

Which leads me to the second problem I had with that storyline. If we were supposed to care about Sylvie and think this was such a difficult decision for Eric … couldn’t they have written their scenes as being about a little more than just sex? I mean, we all knew what his decision was since, you know, Pam, but at least try to make Sylvie more than a pert pair of boobs. It’s just bone bone bone sad. Not much emotional investment in Sylvie and it made Eric seem like a dick.

unbeldi

I was disappointed that they killed Alcide, especially so early in the season. However, it does seem that the end game is to reunite Sookie and Bill (the whole “I’m not the same man who did all of those horrible things to you” was the lame attempt — are they some sort of Jehovah’s Witnesses? — to pave the way). I think it would have been more powerful to have Sookie choose Bill, but that’s just me.

Add me to the list of hoping that Lafayette and James end up as a couple. They have such a charming air in their scenes. Nathan Parsons was a terrific choice to take over the role. Loved him on General Hospital and I’m pleased he ended up on this high-vis show, even in its last season.

Like melange, I find the HepV story a bit off. All African adults are infected? Even HIV hasn’t spread that much. I though Hepatitis was mainly transmitted through sex, contaminated food, and dirty syringe needles. What is going on in the True Blood world? (When the man offered up the little girl to Pam was chilling for its allusions to sex trafficking, and I was so glad Pam refused.)

There can be parallels drawn drawn between this HepV-infected world and The Walking Dead. It seems there are a lot of people who use situations to grab power and take out people who are different or just offend them instead of pulling together. Vince, I’m looking at you.

Given the apparent worldwide nature of the crisis, I’m curious as to how the powers that be will resolve everything. All of the plots don’t necessarily need to be tied up, but it would be disappointing to not resolve the HepV situation. Will someone find a cure or at least an immunization?

melange

Joe Manganiello interviewed that he knew he’d be killed off this season as soon as he read last year’s season finale. I am disappointed, of course. Another one bites the dust for Sookie. At least he (we) got one last nekkid-in-the-woods scene!

They “had” to get rid of a good guy, though, after killing a bunch of bad vampires and townsfolk. Plus random pretty French girl – but I didn’t see the big deal about her. And Sam’s redshirt vampire.

I don’t like True Blood’s impotent take on the werewolf, anyway. They’re basically just wolves that go around biting people to death, so, you know… wolves. No special vampire-killing ability, no extra healing powers. Dare I say it – I think that’s one thing Stephanie Meyer managed to get right.

Sookie can’t live without a man, and I suspect her tastes will swing back to “vampire” after her diary reminiscing last week. Sigh.

Also, here’s one (of many) plot weakness. Why is HepV so prevalent in the human population? It’s not easy to get a disease that can be transmitted only by blood. Presumably no one human was drinking the infected TruBlood, and vampire blood (or “V”) is pretty hard to come by.

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